PRÄTERITUM: How to form the simple past tense in German

The simple past tense also known as Präteritum in German is just one out of the three ways of making expressions and references in the past. This form of past tense unlike the Perfekt tense and Plusquamperfekt does not make use of auxiliary verbs. The verbs are simply conjugated in the second position to the subject of that sentence in the standard sentence order.

Präteritum of Hilfsverben

The Präteritum of the auxiliary verbs are a bit irregular but easy to learn and memorize. Study the pictures below…

Präteritum of weak verbs (Regelmäßige Verben)

The Präteritum of weak verbs can be derived in one of two ways using the verb arbeiten as an example;

• Method 1: Cut off the prefix “ge-” from the perfect form of that verb and then attach the declension suffix from the picture attached to the rest of the stem.
• Method 2: Conjugate the verb in its present tense to the third person subject (er/sie/es) and then add the declension suffix from the picture also.

Präteritum of Strong Verb (unregelmäßige Verben)

The Präteritum of strong verbs is irregular just like in their present and perfekt tense. They all have stem vowel changes that are completely different from their present tense. Unlike weak verbs, they are not first conjugated to the third person subject but instead the verb ending “en” is lost and the stem vowel and/or even some stem consonants are replaced with that of the Präteritum. The stem changes that take place in the Präteritum are shown below.

Observe that the declension at du there is an “e” in bracket. This indicates that it can sometimes be used with or without the “e”. When the stem ends with either “t, d, s or z”, “est” is used but when it involves any other stem ending, “st” is used instead.

Präteritum of Mixed Verb (Gemischte Verben)

Mixed verbs form their Präteritum partly like weak verbs in that they are first conjugated to the third person and then like strong verbs by changing the various stem vowels to “-a” before the declension suffix from the weak verb table for Präteritum above is added or better still, cut off the prefix “-ge” from the perfect tense and add the respective conjunction vowels for perfect tense at the end of the stem.

*Note that all mixed verbs follow this pattern except “wissen” whose stem vowel changes to “-u” instead. See below…

Präteritum of Separable verb (Trennbare Verben)

The Präteritum of these verbs are of the three listed above. They are formed based on the category of the root verb which can either be weak, strong or mixed and without the prefix “-ge”. While these verbs are being conjugated to the subject in the Präteritum, the prefixes but first be cut out and then taken to the end of the sentence after everything else has been written. See examples below.

Präteritum of Inseparable Verbs (Untrennbare Verben)

Since these verbs can’t be separated from their prefixes, the Präteritum is formed with them attached to the prefixes. They procedure is quite similar to that of separable verbs in that those with weak verbs root are converted like weak verbs and likewise the strong and mixed verbs. See examples below.

Präteritum of Modal verbs (Modalverben)

To derive the Präteritum of modal verbs, every umlaut is first replaced with the non-umlaut form of that letter and then the verb end “-en” is replaced with “-t” before the declension suffix is added to the various subjects during conjugation except “mögen” whose stem-end rather changes to “-ch”. See the description below…

*Note that the declension suffix from weak verb above should be used.